Gaming machines which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate the primary or base game. In many of these gaming machines, the award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
Secondary or bonus games are also known in gaming machines. Secondary or bonus games usually do not require an additional wager by the player to be activated and provide an additional award, such as a bonus award, to the player. The awards provided for such secondary or bonus games are calculated into or taken into account in the total average expected payout percentage of the gaming machines. Thus, the total average expected payout percentage or the total gaming machine return of such known gaming machines is the average expected payback percentage of the base game plays plus the average expected payout percentage of the bonus game plays. In certain secondary or bonus games, the bonus game average expected payout percentage is around 30% of the total gaming machine return and varies within the range of 10% to 50% of the total gaming machine return. It should be appreciated that a great amount of time and cost are put into developing the paytables utilized in determining the total gaming machine return (i e., the paytables that account for the base game and any bonus games of the gaming machine).
In certain known gaming machines, secondary or bonus games are activated or triggered upon an occurrence of a symbol or symbol combination in the primary or base game. For instance, a symbol occurring on the payline on the third reel of a three reel slot machine may initiate a secondary bonus game. In the gaming machine software of these gaming machines, certain symbols or symbol combinations are identified or otherwise flagged. When an symbols or symbol combinations generated in the primary or base game are analyzed by the gaming machine's software, if a flag is associated with the analyzed symbols or symbol combinations, the gaming machine's software triggers the bonus or secondary game. That is, these gaming machines include symbol-driven secondary or bonus games which are triggered by the gaming machine. It should be appreciated that since these are game defined symbols or symbol combinations, the frequency and payouts are determined by the game's design and thus are considered an integral part of the game and the characteristic of the game.
Certain other known gaming machines trigger mystery bonus games (which provide mystery bonus awards) without any apparent reason to the player. That is, these gaming machines trigger and display a mystery bonus game (and provide a player any mystery bonus award in the mystery bonus game) independent of any displayed event in or based specifically on any of the displayed plays of any base game. Such mystery bonus awards typically account for a smaller contribution to the total gaming machine return and are considered separate from the primary or base game (i.e., these mystery bonus games are said to sit on top of any existing primary or base games and any existing symbol-driven bonus games). One example of a mystery bonus game includes enabling a player to play for one of a plurality of simultaneously maintained progressive awards arranged in a multi-level progressive (“MLP”) configuration. It should be appreciated that these known mystery bonus games require the gaming machine's software to trigger such mystery bonus games and further to work in conjunction with any other symbol-driven bonus games.
Gaming system delivered or gaming system triggered mystery bonus games are also known. Gaming system mystery bonus games are triggered from a central server, central controller or remote host (i.e., independent from any gaming machine). Such gaming system mystery bonus games are configured to be delivered to or associated with any suitable game played on a suitable gaming machine in the gaming system without having special game software or code associated with these suitable gaming machines. However, these gaming system triggered mystery bonus games typically only add less than 1% to the gaming machine average expected total return. That is, a player would have to wager $100 to be provided an additional average bonus award of $1 as a gaming system mystery bonus award. Accordingly, such gaming system mystery bonus games usually require many gaming machines to be in the gaming system and a long time between payouts to offer substantial sized mystery bonus awards (which are generally offered to a few players at the expense of many players).
As gaming establishments move to a more server based network environment, there is a need to provide bonus awards that contribute a larger percentage to the total average expected return to players (i.e., similar to symbol-driven bonus awards) but which are delivered by a central server. There is also a need to provide bonus awards that are provided to many players and are configured to be delivered to many game types without having special game software or code associated the specific games (i.e., to setup the previously required flags). It should also be appreciated that one issue in designing such a gaming system is that most jurisdictions have regulations that require a gaming machine to return a minimum average expected payback percentage. This minimum average expected payback percentage typically varies from 75% to 88% depending on the jurisdiction, wherein the gaming machines (and in some cases, the base games of such gaming machines) must meet this minimum payback percentage to comply with such regulations. That is, if a gaming system based bonus is currently disabled, the total return of the gaming machine (with the disabled gaming system bonus game) must still meet these jurisdictional requirements. Accordingly, for this reason, any gaming system based bonus that awards more than 15% to 25% return to the player will require the gaming machine to have a total return greater than 100%. Thus, it is difficult to incorporate a gaming system based bonus with a bonus award that accounts for 30% of the total gaming machine return (like a typical symbol-driven game bonus).
Another issue with known gaming machines is that players often suffer from fatigue in playing the same gaming machines repeatedly. That is, certain known gaming machines have a relatively short life span in part because players get bored with the provided base and bonus games of such gaming machines and are intrigued by new gaming machines with new base and bonus games. For this reason, gaming machine manufacturers release hundreds of different gaming machines each year, wherein many of these gaming machines includes more than one type of base game or bonus game. In light of such a large number of gaming machines released each year, gaming establishments, such as casinos, continuously need to differentiate their products and games from those of neighboring gaming establishments. Accordingly, there is a need to enable such gaming establishments to offer unique bonus games to their players that are branded to the gaming establishment and build player loyalty to the gaming establishment. Such a gaming system needs to be provided in a way that does not burden the gaming machine manufacturers by having to develop an unreasonable amount of custom game programs or software and an unreasonable amount of content for each different gaming establishment.
There is also a continuing need to provide new and different gaming machines and gaming systems as well as new and different ways to provide awards to players including bonus awards.